Title: Cutting the Groom’s Tie
General Information about Item:
- Customary Folklore: Rituals, Traditions
- English
- Italian
Informant Data:
- Damiano Benvegnu was born in 1977 in a tiny town called Albergo, which is located in the Dolomites region in the northeastern Italian Alps. He spent most of his childhood living in Turkey and Algeria, but he returned to live in Italy at the age of 10. He is currently an Italian professor at Dartmouth College. He has attended 5-10 Italian weddings.
Contextual Data:
- Social/Cultural Context: After the couple says “I do” and are pronounced man and wife, there is a tradition in Italian weddings to auction off a piece of the groom’s tie. This tradition occurs mainly in the Northern parts of Italy and is meant to symbolize prosperity.
Item:
- At Italian weddings, there is a tradition that the friends of the husband cut a piece of his tie, and hold an auction to raise money for the couple. There is also a belief that if the piece of the husband’s tie raises a lot of money, then the couple will live a prosperous and comfortable life.
Associated file (a video, audio, or image file):
Transcript of Associated File:
- …The friends of the husband usually they have – uh – they cut his tie. And there is a kind of um… how should I call it? -auction! About the pieces of the tie to kind of raise some money for the couple.
Informant’s Comments:
- The informant believes that the tie pieces signify prosperity and good fortune for the couple. The belief is that the more money that the auction raises, the more money the couple will earn in their lifetime.
Collector’s Comments:
- This could be an example of contagious magic; if the tie, which was in contact with the groom, makes money from the auction, then the groom will also make money and live a prosperous life. This is an example of “If A, then good B.”
Collector’s Name: Isabella Florissi, Peter Loomis and Katie Toal
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